how to make a tea wreath

I’m not a coffee person (love the smell- don’t love the taste). Tea, however, is a hot beverage I can really get behind.

This passion for tea translates into a tea box that just can’t accommodate my collection and a tea drawer that is jumbled at best (since there’s no room for all of the boxes that the tea comes in, most of the tea bags have been relocated to bags… it’s an adventure). This situation is totally fine for me; I usually know what I’m looking for and can just paw through to find it. It’s not great for hostessing, though, as guests don’t know what’s available (why the heck not, right?) and I don’t really love the idea of putting 15 ziploc bags full of various tea varieties on my counter every time people come over.

Enter my newly crafted Tea Wreath. With this little circle of goodness, my guests can easily see each kind of tea I have without having to sift through my massive, and sort of confusing, collection. Then, when people leave, I just replenish the wreath. It’s both easy for me and great for all the tea drinkers that frequent our house.

To make a Tea Wreath, you’ll need:
-two pieces of 12x12ish cardboard (I used the back covers to two scrapbook paper packs)
-patterned paper that compliments your kitchen decor (I ended up using one whole piece and part of five pieces… if you minimized your palette, you could probably do the whole project with two pieces of paper)
-clothes pins (I used 24)
-hot glue
-ribbon for hanging
-sour patch kids (apparently, because they made their way into all sorts of pictures along the way…)

1. Hot glue your two pieces of cardboard together (this is to give your base a little bulk since it’ll be holding a bunch of clothespins eventually). Cut the doubled up cardboard into a generally wreath-like shape (a circle, or if you’re adventurous, a square). Make sure the ‘wreath’ part is about as thick as a clothespin. I traced plates to make my circles (you can see that I didn’t like my first choice of inner circle and found something smaller to trace instead).

2. Cover your circle with patterned paper. I traced my ‘wreath’ onto the back side of the patterned paper and then cut outside of my lines by about half an inch to give myself gluing margin. I then notched the margin up to my tracing lines and glued the little tabs around the outside and inside circles. I’m sure there are other ways to cover a cardboard circle- that’s just what I did.

3. Cover your clothespins. You can either stick with patterned paper (I just cut long strips of paper about the width of the clothespin, hot glued the long strip on, and trimmed the ends), or cover with glitter or paint. You could even dye them!

4. Start hot gluing your clothespins to your wreath. Continue until the whole wreath is covered in evenly spaced clothespins. Make sure that the ‘mouth’ of the clothespin faces the outside of the wreath (otherwise you’ll have a whole jumble of tea bags in the center of the wreath and people won’t be able to see which kinds you have).

5. Tie a ribbon on your wreath for hanging. Clip tea onto each of your clothespins. Hang and enjoy!

One of the best features of this tea wreath is it’s adaptability- see other variations here, and here.

Comments

Hi girls,what a wonderful idea! This would make a tremendously nice present for a tea lover! Thanks for being so generous in sharing this with all of us. Please feel free to come and visit my blog, too, if you like:irascreacorner.blogspot.comTake care, Ira

wonderful! I am going to do this soon! I like ira's idea of using as a gift. I think it might also be a great prize at a bridal or baby shower. Even at a womens tea party. LOVE IT! thank you soooo much.

Thank you so much for this idea. I have a dear friend that, sadly, spends too much time in the hospital with her youngest child. I'm going to make one of these for her to take on those trips. Not only will it decorate the room, but it will give her access to tea any time she wants it.

You've got me smiling! This is such a great idea! Thanks so much for linking up at craft schooling Sunday! I'll be sharing this with my readers this week and hope to see you again too! all the best and thanks for all the wonderful projects!

i have been thinking about this project since i saw it on craft schooling sundays at creativejewishmom.com. i just went out and bought a bunch of clothespins and i'm hoping to make it this week. i think it would make a really nice photo display as well. thanks for the idea!

I was thinking this would be a wonderful class gift for a teacher. Students could give gift cards to various places and clip them onto the wreath. It would be a great end-of-the-year gift. I'll have to keep it in mind if I'm ever room mom. 😉

Just the idea of covering clothes pins in pretty paper is fantastic. I don't drink tea, but I can think of so many more uses for pretty clothes pins — clipping and displaying photos, notes, greeting cards, etc. Thanks so much for the idea!

i made this today (after having the supplies sitting in my crafts box for months!) and it came out beautiful! thanks for sharing this idea! i'd love to send you a picture but i can't seem to paste it into my comment. anyway, thanks again! – abby

I don't know how I ended up at this post but I love this idea so much esp. for this time of year when we're looking for gift ideas! I will be making one of these asap for one of my dear friend! Thanks!

I believe I just found a great mother's day gift. How wonderful! The best part is this can be custom designed to match anyone's kitchen, such a great idea. Thanks for sharing your wonderful inspiration!http://maketheworldgoround.wordpress.com

I tried my hand at the tea wreath for a dear friend for Christmas. I think I nailed it :). Wish I could figure out how to post a pic here – I’m not usually good at homemade crafts so I’m very proud of it. Thank you for the instructions that were easy to follow!

I love the tea bag wreath idea. I saw your wreath in the Good Housekeeping magazine. I cut out the section from the magazine and saved it so I could try my hand at it. I finally got a chance to make one. I gave it to my girlfriend for her birthday, We go to tea often so it was a perfect gift for her. The wreath turned out great and I think she loved it 🙂 Thanks for the awesome idea!!

I am having a problem making the tea wreath, I think my paper is “too good”. I cannot get the tabs inside the circle, nor can I get a circle…What type of paper should I use…I am using a hallmark paper…Should I used a thinner paper?

Hey Sally, I used a cardboard box for the circle (so fairly thick) and then just regular thin printed paper for the patterned paper. Perhaps if your patterned paper is nice and thick, that is the issue?

[…] to keep the tea close to keep it filled. Cause I would drink it all. But, how cute is that!! From Kojo Designs. 4.Grab a box of crayons and go to town! Use red and green for the flowers to bring that […]

[…] than any designer one from a store. And as nice as a Starbucks or Tim Hortons gift card would be, a handmade tea wreath would make every morning brighter as I chose a tea from it that I know my husband or children […]

[…] I found an adorable homemade tea wreath at Kojo-designs.com, which could be easily be put together for $10 for the tea lover in your life. You need clothes pins for this wreath and the Dollar Tree sells clothespins for $1. If you don’t know a tea lover, this wreath could be transformed for a chocolate lover. Simply replace tea bags with Ghirardelli chocolate bites or your favorite chocolate with similar packaging. This is an excellent idea: http://kojo-designs.com/2010/03/kojotutorial-tea-tea-tea-kitchen-wreath/ […]

[…] than any designer one from a store. And as nice as a Starbucks or Tim Hortons gift card would be, a handmade tea wreath would make every morning brighter as I chose a tea from it that I know my husband or children […]

[…] and decided to tackle some of the DIYs on my Christmas Craft board. The first thing I made was this Tea Advent Calendar(full tutorial) for our cat sitter, who is an avid tea enthusiast. Here is how mine turned […]